Custom Restore

No. Transferring the iPhone backup is all or none.

I wonder.

I not sure about this, but while going through 4 phones (my 3G and three iphone 4's), I also did some name changing in itunes (double clicking on the phone name).

I thought that itunes would keep track of the phones by serial number or something, but when I went into restore as new the last time, it also game the the usual choice to restore from a back-up - and it gave be choices including the same phone with a different name.

That got me to thinking that maybe users could set up a phone the way they want, before going through a lot of use and changes, and get the backup they want. Then change the name to get another backup which, over time, changes as they add apps, etc.

Then, if they ever need to restore as new, couldn't they then do a restore from this, hopefully, clean backup? Or, even if they do restore as new, they could follow that with this clean backup.

I haven't worked it all out or decided if it is worth it, but I know I hate when I have to restore as new and lose all my game accomplishments.

Frankly, we need an app that somehow saves a file that keeps all game results and settings (not the games themselves) which you could then use to reset those things automatically.

iTunes creates and maintains a backup for each device synced with iTunes on the same computer - for different iPhones, iPod Touch's, and iPads.

After a firmware update is installed or before a firmware update is installed, a new backup for the device will be created.

The same when restoring a device with iTunes.

You can custom restore, but it requires a jailbroken iPhone first (you use a program to extract the app data, then inject it into the jailbroken iPhone, then can "Upgrade" [even if to the same, current] to the iOS), and in the end, is worth it, but settings-wise, is not worth it.